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Monthly Archives: November 2012

Greed Monger Interview – Bringing Out the Worst in Us (In a Good Way)

Questions by Jordan Hall (ApocaRUFF), OnRPG Journalist

Answers by Jason Appleton, Lead Designer and Executive Producer of Greed Monger

Hey everyone! I am ApocaRUFF and today I will be discussing Greed Monger, an up-and-coming sandbox MMO, with one of the developers of the project. Since I first heard of Greed Monger a few days ago, I was extremely hyped. It hopes to provide players with an unprecedented amount of freedom. I can safely say this is quite the ambitious project.

For me, sandbox MMOs are my heaven. I love a game that offers me a lot of options in all areas. I do not like linear gameplay at all. Recently, most games in the MMO market have been slowly moving towards more freedom and less restriction. Unfortunately, very few games offer the amount of freedom that a true sandbox does. This is why I feel that Greed Monger will be a great addition to the genre and the gaming community in general.

Hello! Thank you for agreeing to this interview. Personally, I am very excited about Greed Monger so I am grateful for the opportunity. Could you tell us a bit about yourself and what role you play in this project?

My name is Jason Appleton and I am the Lead Designer and Executive Producer of Greed Monger.

What made you want to break into the MMO industry and what do you think you can bring to it?

I have been a gamer since my first SX64 (Commore’s version of a portable computer), which was purchased on a payment plan by my mother from a yard sale. Maniac Mansion, Rambo First Blood, etc, I couldn’t get enough. Then, when Ultima Online came out I just couldn’t believe it. It was magic for me. All of the other players running around together, the skills, the bartering. Nothing to this day has come close to capturing the essence I so much enjoyed of Ultima Online. I still check it out from time to time just for the sake of nostalgia.

I look at MMORPG’s of today like modern movies compared to old movies. Big budget crap with no soul. How companies can squander tens of millions on something so lack lackluster today is absolutely beyond me. Give me 20% of the budget of half of these games and I’ll show you innovation never seen before. But these companies no longer care about real innovation. Just like in the music business which I was in for several years, big companies don’t want to risk big budgets on anything unproven and it’s always up to the indies to innovate and the majors to adopt once proven successful. I plan to bring something unique to the market that people like myself have been craving for decades but nobody would try.

I can’t help but notice that your team is quite small and each member plays more than one role. Will you have to expand your team to reach your goals or do you feel that you can achieve them with your current team?

Yes, I am already in discussions with several other potential team members. I’m not just looking for people that will do a job for a check and be done. One thing I learned early on in business is that, to be successful you have to surround yourself with people smarter than you and then funnel your passion through them to achieve great things. That’s what I’m looking for. People who are as passionate about the concept of this game as they are their next check. Innovators, thinkers, people who have a world of ideas stirring in them that they have yet to be able to express or bring to fruition. I want Greed Monger to be a hot bed of new ideas that people have yet to see. That takes some time to find, but so far I think things are shaping up well. Within a couple of weeks I expect to have a much fuller team ready to tear into Greed Monger.

I really love the freedom you want to have in the game and how much players will be able to do. Unfortunately, in games that offer similar features to yours, things can become a bit repetitive. How will you keep the game interesting and stop it from becoming a chore to play?

Oh boy, lots of ways. I can’t possibly cover everything we have planned right now but let’s just say forums will be blazing with “what happened last night” posts.

One of the features advertised on the website is developer-controlled monsters. How will you make sure that these developer-controlled fights are fair to players and keep people from rage quitting if they end up dying from a developer-controlled attack?

People will die, and they will raise up to fight again more organized. As with any Raid style mob in a game there will be some trial and error involved in even being competitive with the Gods…many of these experiences will be impromptu and unplanned amongst the players we spawn on, which will be taken into account when they happen, but they of course won’t be a walk in the park for anyone.

You have mentioned that it might be possible for players to create their own gods and submit them to become one of the Developer-controlled gods. How will players be able to do this and what requirements would need to be filled? How much of a role will gods play in the lives of the players?

Due to the fact that Greed Monger will literally start with nothing but nature, there is no lore to speak of, yet. The players and guilds who form together will be the ones who create the lore in the game based on their submissions of stories of their experiences in the game. We have lore and story in a lock box that won’t be revealed to players until they have established themselves as a society. For now, they aren’t worth the attention of the Gods as they are mere ants collecting leaf fragments. Think about it this way, we on Earth have our history as it’s been written over centuries. If alien beings came down from the clouds tomorrow we would soon find out the truth behind why we are here and suddenly light will be shed on all of the darkness we currently believe as fact. Expect something similar in the future of Greed Monger.

While watching your Quick Landscape Demo video, I wondered how players will interact with the game world. Will it be point-and-click or some other method?

The same way you would interact with the world in Everquest, WOW etc. I guess I don’t understand what you mean.

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As a crafting-focused sandbox, I am sure there will be some form of resource gathering. How will players gather resources (will it be a dynamic or static system) and what sorts of resources will they be able get?

Resources will be gathered from everything in the world and will be a combination of dynamic and static. When you kill an animal for instance, it may drop useable bone with which to craft an item or weapon, or it may drop something rare and useful for a mage like a still beating heart. There will be static resource nodes scattered throughout but that won’t guarantee you anything. Greed Monger will be a darker and harder game than something like Guild Wars 2. It won’t be candy coated to appeal to the mass market.

How many recipes do you estimate the game will have at launch and will there be any room for creativity when it comes to crafting?

Oh my God, if I have my way about it, a thousand plus. But realistically, I don’t yet know. Our goal is to get the basic system and recipes/plans established that players will need to get going in the world but ultimately, I do have plans for experimental crafting in the future. I have some ideas that I’d really like to implement but I’m honestly not yet sure how possible it will be.

One of the planned skills is Treasure Hunter. What kind of neat things can players find with this skill and how will it benefit them?

Oh we are going to make this fun…all I’m saying for now.

Speaking of skills, what are some of the other skills you want to give players and could you give us some examples as to what players will be able to do with them?

This is a difficult question because there are things about the game I have yet to discuss anywhere yet and I don’t want to release it in detail yet. All I will say here is, the game will progress in Ages based on population and economic growth. Skills that are useful to you today could become obsolete in the “future”.

I am a big fan of magic in games and I know that your game will include it from looking at your website. What can we look forward to doing with magic?

Our magic system won’t be broken down into Archetypes or Class Titles. Magic is magic. What you decide to use the most will make up who you are. If we had 60 magic skills available, you would still only be able to use a small number at any given time. I have always played magic users in games and I know one thing I’ve always wanted was to be a truly evil magic user. I plan on making that possible. In Greed Monger, if you are an evil mage, I almost want what you have to do to become evil, creep you out or make you ponder whether you really want to be evil. The opposite is true for good magic users. It may be all crimson and clovers for them but the question you have to ask yourself is, what are you willing to give up for more power? Everything in Greed Monger comes at a price.

One of my favorite parts of any MMO is player-versus-player combat. What role will this play in your game, and how will you make it fun? I am also interested in knowing if the game will be full-loot or if you will keep everything on you when you die?

Player Vs. Player will be restricted to select zones. Zones that happen to be home to a higher percentage of rare monsters and harvestables. Full loot in these zones and competition will be fierce.

One of the big features about the game is the ability to buy land. This makes me wonder just how big the world will be. Could you tell us about the planned size of the game world and how you plan to keep the place from feeling crowded?

Due to the nature of the land ownership system, land values will go up and down based on land available. We honestly don’t know yet exactly how large to make each climate but are constantly monitoring interest in the game to gauge it. When I say climate, I’m referring to a land mass in a particular weather or climate condition such as Green Grasslands, Sandy Desert, Rocky mountainous etc. These land masses will be very large to say the least regardless, but the question is, how many various Climates we will launch with.

Thank you for answering my questions. I have a lot more to ask, and I am sure others do to, but I will save those for another day. Is there anything you would say to our readers? And perhaps you could share an estimate on when alpha or beta testing will begin?

Thank you so much for your support with Greed Monger. The best thing an independent effort like Greed Monger can hope for is for people who like what we are doing to spread the word. The community is truly what is going to make this game the best it can be. We are providing the vehicle, but it’s up to the playerbase to provide the gas. I am hoping we can get at least an alpha phase ready within 3-4 months of the Kickstarter Phase 1 Conclusion.

Thank you for answering our questions. I look forward to the future of Greed Monger, as I am sure others do too.

Greed Monger is a crafting focused, free to play MMORPG where every finished item in the world is crafted by a player. Monsters dont drop swords, gold pieces or armor, but when harvested after a kill, they will drop materials used in crafting items, weapons, armor and the like.

Features:

Open World Sandbox Elements: Open PK in certain areas, non-instanced housing, experimental crafting, and more will take this MMORPG into levels of freedom we haven’t seen in AAA titles for quite some time.

Dev-Controlled Monsters: AI not cutting it for you? Try your hand against the indie devs themselves as they launch dynamic assaults on player build towns.

Dynamic Skill Acquisition: No man can know all things. In Greed Monger your actions have consequences and certain skills may be unlocked based on your behavior.

No Lore: Why be hand fed your lore when you can be responsible to build your own? The tales told by players will actively build into the lore of Greed Monger!

It’s been another busy week for betas. We have beta keys for FireFall, Arctic Combat and Legend of Edda: Vengeance. The big news was that Soul Captor was shutting down as Gamania pulls out of the North American and UK markets. The Kartuga Alpha took place at InnoGames’ German headquarters. Legend of Edda: Vengeance entered closed beta. While ArcheAge announced they would enter beta in May 2013, in China. Finally this weekend marks the first of two stress test weekends for FireFall. You can find all this and much more below.

As ever any new additions are highlighted below in orange.

OnRPG Giveaways

These are all the beta giveaways currently running on OnRPG. There’s no guarantee that we won’t run out so grab them quick.

Expansions:

These are the beta events for games which are already live. These are for new content which is going to be added to the game at a later date. Access is limited to the current playerbase and often requires special permissions to take part.

DeNA and Square Enix Partner to bring Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade to North America

Following the game’s success in Japan, DeNA Co., Ltd. (TSE: 2432) and Square Enix Co., Ltd. announced today that the two companies are bringing FINAL FANTASY® AIRBORNE BRIGADE™ to mobile phone users in North America. This is the first FINAL FANTASY free-to-play social game to be released in English.

FINAL FANTASY AIRBORNE BRIGADE is an easy-to-play social game where players cooperate and adventure through a world inspired by the popular FINAL FANTASY series. Each player rides an airship, and forms groups called airborne brigades in order to fight powerful bosses. Each player gains experience, and levels up by adventuring through quest regions. They will encounter foes and obtain abilities and items straight from the FINAL FANTASY series.

“We’re very proud to offer FINAL FANTASY fans based in North America our own take on the themes and ideals of the series with the upcoming launch of the mobile game FINAL FANTASY AIRBORNE BRIGADE,” said Kenji Kobayashi, executive games director at DeNA. “In celebration of the franchise’s 25th anniversary this year, we strived to create a unique gameplay experience where players can elevate each other through fun, cooperative play.”

The game appeals to FINAL FANTASY fans as well as players new to the franchise. FINAL FANTASY AIRBORNE BRIGADE will be available soon as a free download on Android and iOS devices.

Players can pre-register for the game and be alerted via email as soon as the game is available for free download. Pre-registered players can obtain a free three-month exclusive in-game card featuring Cloud, one of the most popular FINAL FANTASY characters of all time, which will help them during boss battles. Also as an exclusive for OnRPG readers if you input code FFABRPG you can unlock a Lightning Summon Stone to bring the fearsome combination of Cloud and Lightning to your boss battles!

Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade is an easy-to-play social game where players cooperate and adventure through a world inspired by the popular Final Fantasy series. Each player rides an airship, and forms groups called airborne brigades in order to fight powerful bosses. Each player gains experience, and levels up by adventuring through quest regions. They will encounter foes and obtain abilities and items straight from the Final Fantasy series.

Tyrian Times – Is Guild Wars 2 Dying?

By Meredith Watson, OnRPG Tyrian Reporter

Just like Chicken Little declaring the sky is falling, some gamers are claiming Guild Wars 2 is dying. Granted, the game is now out of its honeymoon phase but hardly does this mean a death is imminent. Events while levelling aren’t as populated as they were a couple months ago but I’ve yet to do one alone. Also, judging by the numbers of people that turned up for the first night of the Lost Shores event I would say that Guild Wars 2 is anything but dead. Where the confusion comes in is in the fact that Guild Wars 2 isn’t necessarily a game that can be played like other MMOs. For starters, it is just too new and lacks the depth of older games. That will all come in time. It seems most just pop in and out of Guild Wars 2 while playing their “main” game. As with Chicken Little, the proclamation that the game is dying is nothing more than fear mongering after a bad couple weeks.

Fear mongering aside, quite a lot of players are frustrated right now. Whether that is due to the Lost Shores Event or the overall game experience so far is questionable.

While the game certainly isn’t on its death bed, it does need certain features implemented. In particular, a looking for group/dungeon tool would not go amiss. With the Fractal of Mists and given the way they scale, general chat is almost exclusively requests for specific level fractals. Already Fractals of the Mist, while popular, are splitting the community in terms of finding other players of a similar FotM level for grouping. However, it seems ArenaNet does not have any plans:

There are currently no plans to implement a dungeon finder. If you are having trouble finding groups for dungeons, you can use our LFG system. Open up your contacts menu in-game, and there should be an option in there for grouping. That way it’s not just people standing out in front of dungeons shouting LFG until someone invites them. This system does not stretch across servers, or to other maps. -ArenaNet

The current LFG system is nothing more than flagging yourself as looking for a group, which certainly isn’t very effective or as one forum poster puts it “you don’t launch an MMO in 2012 without a LFG system. Especially when you know it is going to be expected.”

The economy appears to be in a state of flux with prices for items like unidentified dyes sky rocketing. The November 5th update was simply, “On November 1, we introduced a change that unintentionally increased the drop rate of Unidentified Dye. Today’s game update corrects the drop rate for Unidentified Dye.” Players are now saying dyes are dropping at the most once a week. When the game was first released the unidentified dye drop rate was quite good. Again, this is problematic because dyes are not account bound which is something players have been asking for. Is this game changing? Of course not, but for some it is part of the fun factor. The gold to gem ratio is quite high and has been for a while. Theories for this range from too many people have left the game to there isn’t a large gold sink to waste gold on. Whatever the reason, it has more than a few players annoyed.

Another thing that may leave a bad taste in the some gamers’ mouths is the lack of a traditional end game (this is when they pop over to their main game). ArenaNet has stated “we designed the game to avoid a common problem in many MMOs: grinding through chunks of boring, repetitive content to get to the occasional pockets of fun”. This sounds great but with high level zones either bugged or for some, very difficult, it doesn’t inspire much confidence in ArenaNet’s idea of fun. And this leads us back to Fractals of the Mists as the thing to do at level 80 for PvE, which as stated previously needs a LFG/dungeon finder tool.

Guild Wars 2 certainly isn’t dying. Is it tapering off after a much hyped release? Why, yes. Of course. It is disheartening that ArenaNet does not have plans to do a LFG/dungeon tool but hopefully they can make other changes that will keep the playerbase happy. As long as we show up for their event releases and buy their expansions, ArenaNet may or may not give us what we want.

OnRPG Shotgun News 11/30: City of Heroes, STO, and Mortal Online F2P!

By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Journalist

City of Heroes Closing Later Today

After eight years at the top the number one Superhero MMO City of Heroes is shutting down later today. The announcement was made by Paragon Studios in August just before an American three day weekend. Since that day Paragon Studios has been closed with the exception of a very small crew to see out the final days. This sparked a campaign by the fans to try to save City of Heroes. A 6,000 plus strong rally was held in City of Heroes to mark the start of the campaign. Since the announcement NCSoft has only issued one, small announcement to the fans directly. Instead going through Paragon Studio employees. City of Heroes has been a ground breaker in innovation. Our very own Meticulous Meta has written about all aspects of City of Heroes for the last two years and will have one last article next week. The servers are being shut down at 12 Midnight Pacific time.

Star Trek Online Foundry Gets an Update in Season 7

In a new dev diary Maria, aka ZeroniusRex announced some of the new things coming to the very popular Foundry in Star Trek Online. The biggest new feature is the Spotlight. Authors will be able to submit their work to be a potential spotlight candidate with the click of a button. If theirs gets picked it will be put on spotlight for a week. There are also new things for authors. Hiding NPCs and making them go on patrol which will allow authors to set NPCs to patrol a certain area. A new NPC group, new ships, and a new map round out the additions coming to the Foundry.

Mortal Online Goes Free to Play

The hugely popular Mortal Online has good free to play. But as with any free to play model there are restrictions. F2P accounts will be limited to 60 skills instead of 100. Premium players will have access to thievery skills, be able to loot expensive items, and trade expensive items. To celebrate going free to play Mortal Online has released a video which you can watch below.

Grimlands Begins its Second Closed Beta Phase with a Big Update

Today gamigo’s post-apocalyptic Shooter-MMO, Grimlands, enters the next phase of closed beta testing. The servers will stay open until Wednesday the 5th so that all content and changes can be thoroughly examined.

Beta testers can look forward to around three-times as much game content. There are mercenaries and mutants to fight in far-off settlements which they have taken control of. In addition to this the number of dungeons has grown to 23. With the new version there’s been a comprehensive renewal of the interface, substantially more intelligent opponents, a reworked shooter feeling, and improved graphic effects.

An overview of all important changes:

New regions unlocked

Completely new interface

Improved graphics

Optimized performance

Reworked shooter feeling

New enemy AI

A total of 10,000 players have been chosen for the CBT2. Whoever wants to take part should register quickly for free on the official website.

The Elder Scribe: The Elder Scrolls Online Q&A Recap

By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Journalist

This month The Elder Scrolls Online have hosted two Q&A sessions on the official TESO website. While the focus of the two was intended to be the Ebonheart Pact many, many questions about the game in general were answered. I’ve gone through the many pages of questions and picked out what I think are the most informative and important to know.

Will the faction PVE areas each have their own quests? Or will they be mirrors of each other? – By El Hefe

Each Alliance (and area) has its own completely unique quests and storylines, layered on top of their individual internal struggles and history. When we design content in The Elder Scrolls Online, we aspire to create storylines, experiences, and characters that are befitting of the Alliance they are a part of. Each Alliance’s content in ESO is as varied and dynamic as the Alliances themselves are—your adventures an Argonian in the Ebonheart Pact, for example, will be quite different than those of a Bosmer in the Aldmeri Dominion.

Should you choose to play characters in each of the three Alliances (and we hope you do!), you will experience completely different content that is representative of each Alliance’s story, history, and politics.

Obviously the Elves and the Nords have never got along too well – are the nations in the factions entirely happy with the alliance, or are there rogue/rebel groups within, say, Skyrim or Morrowind? – By George Trotter

The foundation the Ebonheart Pact was built upon—one of mutual desire for survival—makes for a deeply complex and ever-shifting political atmosphere. The Argonians, Nords, and Dark Elves have set aside their differences, for now, to unite under one banner against their shared enemies—but to say that everyone is happy or even content with the Alliance would be a far cry from the truth. A certain level of distrust and resentment roils just beneath the surface for many members of the Pact.

While some are openly accepting or critical of the Alliance, most Pact members you’ll encounter fall somewhere in between, and hold their true feelings about the arrangement close to their chest. It really depends on each individual character’s perspective and life experiences. Most you encounter are not willing to bring up their personal feelings to a stranger, but you will meet some who are very open with their praise or disdain for the choices their leaders have made.

Looking at http://elderscrollsonline.com/fr/game-guide/alliances I noticed some areas were grayed… or rather, “browned” out; Black Marsh and Vvardenfell, most notably, and with Solstheim, large portion of the western Skyrim (the areas containing Markath and Solitude, for example), and most of the eastern portion of Morrowind. The question itself is as follows: Do you have future plans regarding these areas, possibly including them at expansions, etc? And is the “only” playable area for the Pact the area colored in red – not to forget Cyrodiil, of course? If so, might we gain a rough estimate of the amount of “zones” (areas with short loading screens separating them) this seemingly massive area includes? – By Juho Kola

It’s too early for us to start discussing the exact number and names of locations that each Alliance will be able to explore when The Elder Scrolls Online launches, but we have plans to expand and open up more regions of Tamriel in the future.

As for the colors you see on our Alliances page map, those are rough visual representations of each Alliance’s territory. That map is meant to give you a general idea of each Alliance’s regions—what you see there is not intended to be exact.

Given the fact that Windhelm will most definitely be in TESO, how familiar will it be to the Windhelm of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim? It’s quite a bit younger in TESO, but still of Ancient Atmoran aesthetic, being built by Ysgramor himself. – By Madison Harmon Bullock IV

We’ve taken great care to be extremely faithful to the existing Elder Scrolls lore, history, and visual feel. This includes our approach to how we’ve designed places you’ve visited in previous Elder Scrolls games, such as the city of Windhelm, in Skyrim’s Eastmarch region. If you’ve played The Elder Scrolls V:Skyrim, walking through the streets of Windhelm in The Elder Scrolls Online will feel very familiar. The same goes for Cyrodiil—those who visited the region in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion will notice familiar villages and points of interest in ESO’s Cyrodiil, such as Chorrol.

That being said, the stories and events that unfold in these areas during The Elder Scrolls Onlinewill be different than those in past Elder Scrolls games. The people living in these familiar places won’t be too different from their brethren in later times; however, they will have different views and tales to tell, based on the current events that are impacting their daily lives.

Will the Companions be involved somehow? – By Jason Bryden

Yes, The Companions—the legendary group of Nord heroes you met in the city of Whiterun in Skyrim—have been part of Nord culture since Ysgramor’s arrival on the shores of Skyrim before the First Era, so they certainly have a presence in ESO.

To what extent will the Tribunal feature in the Ebonheart Pact storyline, and how far along in the main quest will we learn about the pretender to the Tribunal? – By Josh James

As the rulers of Morrowind, both spiritually and politically, the Tribunal are quite prominent in the Ebonheart Pact – especially Almalexia, who’s been handling temporal affairs since the recent Akaviri invasion. But a pretender to the Tribunal? Mother Morrowind would dismiss the idea as absurd. Clearly impossible.

I’ve read that anyone can use any type of weapon or armor. Have you thought about having alliance-only weapon/armor styles? (For example, chitin armor available only to the Ebonhart Pact, since they have exclusive access to chitin in Morrowind.) – By Jeremy Eddy

Armor in The Elder Scrolls Online is regionally appropriate, whether it’s a loot drop, merchant stock, or quest reward; however, with the right skills and materials, you’ll be able to craft items in any racial style.

Hi, I’ve been playing The Elder Scrolls games since Morrowind, and I have always played as an Argonian. Now that I’ve seen the screenshot on your website called ‘Argonian soldiers’, I’m a little disappointed, I was hoping for a more lizard, amphibian looking Argonian. I assume their faces are flat for helmet modeling, But I hope they’ll look more like the one on the Ebonheart pact page. Also, they should have badass horns… So can you tell me, is this the final version of the Argonian? – By Rofaka

Customization of individual characters will allow for much more variety than we’ve been able to convey in the screenshots released so far. Also, we’re still fine-tuning the ESO character models, including the Argonians.

So, there you have a round up of the first two AMA events taking place on the website for The Elder Scrolls Online. Character customization, armor, politics, and world geography, this month had it all. As more Q&A sessions are held I’ll be posting about them right here so check back regularly for more from The Elder Scribe.